Previous winners, new books… Sometimes it means the magic has happened again, and a lucky (well, and talented) author will receive a second (or third) golden P sticker. More often, the magic doesn’t happen again, but previous winners have a proven track record so it’s a pretty sure bet anything from a previous winner received […]

Women Who Broke the Rules: Mary Todd Lincoln By Kathleen Krull Illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley Bloomsbury ISBN: 9780802738240 $16.99 Grades 2-5 Out December 1, 2015 Find it at: Schuler Books | Your Library Reanimating the dead is often more difficult than creating them out of thin air. Good biography brings life and makes the subject feel […]

Apocalypse Bow Wow By James Proimos III Illustrated by James Proimos Jr. Bloomsbury ISBN: 9781619634428 $13.99 Grades 3-6 Out Now Find it at: Schuler Books | Your Library Dystopia. Although it’s been a popular theme lately in books for young people, my experience with it is fairly limited. Maybe I need to read more YA. […]

Two of 2014′s stand-out debuts continue! Pierce Brown’s Red Rising was on our Best of the Year list. The second book of the trilogy is even better. EW posted a great interview with the author (mind those spoilers!) and you can see the cover of the trilogy finale, Morning Star, on Brown’s website. The Mime Order is the […]

Two books that follow professional stage magicians, or illusionists, top our week. I was completely entranced by The Magician’s Lie, a terrific historical yarn that reads like a modern thriller. The title magician is a young woman, and the only woman making the circuit in the first decade of the 20th century. It is her […]

Anyone who cares about narrative, movies, or both should be reading Matt Bird’s Cockeyed Caravan blog. He spends most of his time there deconstructing the narrative structure of Hollywood movies and explaining how and why movies do (and don’t) work. But while he only discusses movies (and usually big-budget Hollywood ones at that), his insights […]

Bright Before Sunrise by Tiffany Schmidt. Walker Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury. 2014. Review copy from publisher. The Plot: Is it possible for one night to make a difference in a person’s life? Jonah and Brighton are about to find out. The Good: First things first: I loved this book. I loved Jonah and Brighton, separate […]

Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II by Martin W. Sandler. Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury. 2013. Review copy from publisher. YALSA Nonfiction Finalist. It’s About: The United States entered World War II after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The history of the Japanese […]

We review two books today, both set in very specific communities overshadowed by poverty and tragedy. Let’s start with Men We Reaped, a memoir by Jesmyn Ward. Ward’s fierce, poetic debut novel, Salvage the Bones, won the National Book Award and a 2012 Alex Award. It follows a pregnant teenage girl and her family through […]

A Song for Bijou By Josh Farrar Walker Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Bloomsbury) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8027-3394-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Now let us discuss the middle school book. It is, arguably, the most forgotten book of its kind on a library and/or bookstore shelf. The book written for your average everyday […]

You know what’s hard about managing a book review blog? Mailing away those books that you know you would love — if you only had the time. So today’s theme is books I wish I had kept for myself to review. (I’m only half joking!) First up, The Fort of Nine Towers. This book is a […]

The Water Castle By Megan Frazer Blakemore Illustrated by Jim Kay Walker Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Bloomsbury) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8027-2839-5 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Where does fantasy stop and science fiction begin? Is it possible to ever draw a distinct line in the sand between the two? A book with a […]

In Darkness by Nick Lake. Bloomsbury. 2012. Review copy from publisher. The Plot: A young man is trapped in darkness: one minute he is in his hospital bed, the next the building is rubble around him and he is alive but there is no way out. He will tell you a story, his story, of how he […]

Today we look at two examples of the postmodern novel. Postmodernism has gotten a bad rap–almost from the beginning–for being purposefully obscure, denying the existence of meaning, and encouraging moral relativism. But, while I concede that many postmodern works of art can be infuriatingly vague, for me at least the best postmodern novels (like the […]

Today we review three thrillingly original works of speculative fiction. Let’s start with a post-apocalyptic, dystopian debut novel. The Office of Mercy is being marketed as a Hunger Games readalike. (I’ve also seen comparisons to recent Alex Award winner, Pure). However, debut author Djanikian is more concerned with ethical questions than fast-paced action. The Alphas had good intentions […]

Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers by Kirsten Miller. Bloomsbury USA. 2013. Review copy from publisher. Sequel to Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City and Kiki Strike: The Empress’s Tomb. The Plot: Kiki is back, along with Ananka (the narrator) and the other Irregulars: Luz, Oona, Betty and DeeDee. Inside the Shadow City told how the gang got […]

Kiki Strike: The Empress’s Tomb by Kirsten Miller. Bloomsbury USA. 2007. Review copy from publisher. Sequel to Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City. The Plot: In Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, Kiki assembled the Irregulars, a group of disgraced former Girl Scouts who all have extraordinary talents and skills. Together, these fourteen year olds discovered […]

Back in 2006, I reviewed Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller (Bloomsbury USA 2006). The sequel, Kiki Strike: The Empress’s Tomb, was published in 2007. The third book, Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers is coming out January 2013. Bloomsbury is reissuing the first two books, with new covers (first image is the original, the […]

In this week’s reviews, we delve into three takes on the everlasting American obsession with crime and criminals. We start with Rob Deborde’s Portlandtown, which injects its paranormal underpinnings (and just “what is it with all this paranormal activity occurring in the Pacific Northwest?” asks reviewer Carla Riemer) with classic tropes from Western and Crime fiction […]